The present invention relates generally to the art of telecommunications, and, more particularly, to a method and system for synchronizing network-based voicemail and multimedia mail to an external device.
Wireless communication networks, which are well known, allow mobile devices to communicate with each other and other networks, such as the Internet and the public switched telephone network (PSTN). First and second generation wireless telephone systems are generally constrained in the amount of bandwidth available for communication, which limits capacity and also the types of services that can be provided. Third generation (3G) wireless systems, which are being developed through the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), hold the promise of greater bandwidth, thereby increasing capacity and allowing for enhanced services, such as multimedia services.
3GPP is the new worldwide standard for the creation, delivery, and playback of multimedia over new, high-speed wireless networks. 3GPP enables the free sharing of multimedia files between a variety of devices, including cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and notebook and desktop computers. 3GPP devices include, in addition to a voice communication interface, capability for communication of data and display of data, including video.
Various features and services have been developed and made available to wireless customers. For example, voicemail systems, which are well known, allow callers the option to leave voicemail messages for parties who are unavailable. In order to leave a message, the caller is typically prompted to enter a command on a keypad of a handset or wait for a specified tone, or both. The voicemail system then records the voicemail message for a predetermined amount of time or until the caller ends the call. Multimedia mail is the exchange of messages consisting of at least two media within a message using the mail transport service. The types of media include text, images, voice and video. Proposed third generation (3G) wireless systems will permit wireless users the capability to leave multimedia messages in multimedia mail systems similar to that of voicemail systems.
The only way for a wireless subscriber to retrieve voicemail and/or multimedia mail messages is by connecting directly to the voicemail server in the network through the wireless device or through another telephone device. However, the voicemail messages will remain on the voicemail server (until they are deleted), which limits the ability of the subscriber to manipulate and replay the messages as needed. The subscriber must connect to the voicemail server each time he or she wants to listen to a message. Thus, there exists a need for a convenient method and system that allows a subscriber to synchronize the subscriber's voicemail (and multimedia mail) messages with an external device, such as an intelligent answering machine, whereby the messages can be readily modified, saved, replayed, and deleted by the subscriber.